Suratwala family pays $13.8M for hotel in Bay Ridge

Members of the Suratwala family through the entity Jai Sai Group, LLC paid $13.8 million to Pamela M. Williams through the entity Gregory Hotel Holdings, Inc. for the hotel building (H3) at 8315 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on December 22, 2023 and was recorded on January 9, 2024. The property has 42,410 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $326 per the PincusCo analysis. (The price per square foot analysis is the transaction price divided by square feet as reported in public records and assumes no air rights have been sold.)
The signatory for Pamela M. Williams was Pamela M. Williams. The contract date was September 1, 2023.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the Suratwala family had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Pamela M. Williams had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Pamela McKenzie-Williams, head officer and Edward Heiss, officer. The business entity is Gregory Hotel Holdings Inc.

The property

The hotel building in Bay Ridge has 42,410 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 107 feet and is 115 feet deep with a total lot size of 9,581 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R7B which allows for up to 3 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $7.8 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received four DOB violations and $1,100 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its renovation certificate of occupancy on September 17, 2021. There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Bay Ridge, The bulk, or 30 percent of the 21 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with walkup buildings next occupying 28 percent of the space. In sales, Bay Ridge has 1.8 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $558.7 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 10th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Bay Ridge has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 319,050 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 2 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of two of the 16 commercial properties representing 63,784 square feet of the 161,176 square feet. The two identified owners are Moshe J. Levison and Landau Real Estate.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 37 percent of the 161,176 square feet of built space are mixed-use buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 36 percent of the space.

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